As I mentioned in a previous post in Nov’07, the 4th annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show was in Portland last weekend. Kara’s been working in ABQ for the last week and a half so I had some time to kill and I checked it out. Though a little pricey to attend ($18), I had a very good time. Walking around with a beer and looking at bicycles and bike parts that you either can’t buy at any cost or are likely too expensive to consider is a good Sunday in my book.
I even ran across Brian Lopes, who for those of you don’t know, is a world champion mountain bike racer and someone who I’ve followed since I raced BMX as he also got his start racing BMX as a pro. I’ve seen him at races in Whistler, BC & Angel Fire, NM- where he won both, and man can he ride a bike. It was cool to see Brian walking around, much like I was doing, with his digital camera admiring the hard work of those who are lucky, skilled, and hardworking enough to do something for a living that they love…
I took a lot of pictures, but here’s a bunch that show various designs that I found most interesting, but with 150+ folks showing off their works of rideable art, there was no shortage of cool things to take note of. For info on the show, check out the official site: http://www.handmadebicycleshow.com/2008/, but here are a few of my pics in no particular order-
1) Renovo- a new Portland based company producing high end wood road bike frames. Yes wood, and bonded to rear carbon fiber stays no less. These things are CNC machined in halves then bonded together.
2) Delta 7 MTB- Very small carbon fiber tubes wrapped with kevlar that creates a frame that you can see through. The mountain bike frame weighs about 2.7 lbs and they claim it’s as strong “as anything in its weight class”. For $7000 (frame only) I guess you can test one yourself. And 3) BME Carbon Fiber w/ Kevlar tube prototype road bike that at least generically speaking was very similar in concept to the more mass-produced Delta 7 MTB frame. Though they guy that built it seemed offended when I made the comparison. That’s probably because had invested over 400 hrs to make one frame and said “I probably won’t be making any more”. No doubt.
4) Going back to my BMX roots, I really liked the Independent Fabrication Carbon Fiber / Titanium BMX bike. It had to be the sweatest BMX bike I’ve ever seen.
5) High-end Townie bikes seemed very popular at the show. These bikes were actually some of my favorites, but I just can’t realistically think that there’s many people who will fork over the $2-6k that a lot of these would cost, and even fewer people who would actually risk the threat of theft by riding somewhere that it would be left out of sight. Nonetheless, I still have a soft spot for a tricked out Titanium cruiser.
6) Kevler belt drives. Belt drives for bicycles have been around for a long time, but none have proven to actually work in real world conditions, but the makers of the ones that were at the show claim that they’ve finally created one that will stand up to real cycling needs. As an engineer, I’m always up for new designs, especially one that is lighter, quieter, and smoother than what has been propelling bicycles for a very long time. One interesting fact about these belts is that they require a redesigned frame with a chainstay that allows for the belt to slide on since there’s no way to disconnect any part of the belt, so bike companies will need to modify their designs should they want to run this drivetrain setup.
7) Check out the width of the rims on that Moots MTB. It’s like the bigfoot of mountain bikes!
8) Some others…
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